Sara Mead is a senior associate with Bellwether Education Partners who writes about education policy, with particular attention to early childhood education, school reform, and improving educational outcomes for low-income students.

Major News

This new report from Georgetown University quantifying the earnings of people with different college majors was bound to get a lot of attention. Two quick observations worth noting:

First, Early Childhood Education is the second-lowest paying of all college majors surveyed--with a median earning of $36,000 beating out only Counseling psychology. The relatively low wages of Early Childhood Education bachelor's degree holders has serious implications for efforts to improve the quality of the early childhood profession--particularly those that focus on requiring pre-k teachers to hold a bachelor's degree.

Second, it's interesting to note that of the three majors in which African American graduates are most disproportionately concentrated, two are among the three lowest-earning majors (and the third is also not very high-earning). I don't really have anything informed to say about that, but it seems like something worth thinking about. There is a concerted effort underway to improve college-going and graduation rates for African American young people, which is much needed given the large disparities in educational attainment. But it's possible that college counseling efforts to help more African American students prepare for and succeed in college should also address guidance/support in choosing majors.

Notice: We recently upgraded our comments. (Learn more here.) If you are logged in as a subscriber or registered user and already have a Display Name on edweek.org, you can post comments. If you do not already have a Display Name, please create one here.

Ground Rules for Posting
We encourage lively debate, but please be respectful of others. Profanity and personal attacks are prohibited. By commenting, you are agreeing to abide by our user agreement.
All comments are public.